A Good Egremont Russet

I thought I might do a tarte Tatin with pears. I don’t know why, as I regard tarte Tatin made with anything but apples as heretical – but there were no pears. It was too early in the season to use Cox’s and the only apples available were Russets. Now I really love a good Egremont Russet but I not think they would be any good in a tarte Tatin and I was running out of ideas. I was convinced that they would collapse in the pan and would lack the requisite acidity to make a proper tarte Tatin. How wrong I was: they held up beautifully, had a lovely residual acidity on the finish, and the luscious perfume was enough to draw my son-in-law from the other end of the garden to hover around waiting for the photographer to finish.